During October of 2009, then-President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill, designed to impose harsher federal sentences on purveyors of violent acts against specific protected communities. The document was named for a Wyoming teen viciously tortured and murdered after nightclubbing in Laramie by a pair of assailants, one of which he had known previous to the evening. When his bloodied and lifeless body was found in a field attached to a fence an associate informed local news of his homosexuality and a firestorm was ignited. Worldwide (I lived in Holland at the time - October, 1998) vigils erupted for the senseless anti-gay murder in flyover America with justice demanded. The problem? Most assuredly, Shepard's slaughter was divorced from his sexual preference. Court records obtainable by an internet search demonstrate that virtually all parties interviewed offered testimony to the scenario being driven by all three individuals being methamphetamine addicts; this was a drug crime, a robbery gone off-the-rails by a three day speed bender. ABC News reported this incongruity on a 20/20 Special Report that drew such ire it was never broadcast again. To this day, the popular perception holds that Shepard died from injuries sustained from what street vernacular calls "fag-bashing". Why is this misnomer still prevalent in our ethos? The answers lie where most mistruths find demystification in society: money and power. The aim of this report is to separate governance of civil rights from hate crimes. The trouble is that assessment of the latter, particularly in our contemporary climate, is a fool's errand bound for popularity, bias, greed, hypocrisy, and a severe threat to the American experiment via the First Amendment.

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"Join the Fight for Civil Rights"

One way to get involved in the fight for civil rights is to stay informed. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a not-for-profit advocacy group based in Montgomery, Alabama. Lawyers for the SPLC specialize in civil rights litigation and represent many people whose rights have been violated, from victims of hate crimes to undocumented immigrants. They provide summaries of important civil rights cases (https://openstax.org/l/29SPLCcivri) under their Docket section. Activity: Visit the SPLC website (https://www.openstax.org//1/29splcwebsite)to find current information about a variety of different hate groups. In what part of the country do hate groups seem to be concentrated? Where are hate incidents most likely to occur? What might be some reasons for this?"(Kurtz, 2021)

     This excerpt is from our textbook apparently educating the reader, the express purpose of the device, to explore contemporary civil rights through a nonprofit agency designed to hinder threats to protected citizens. However, many would consider this "Get Connected" aside from page 147 of the OpenStax American Government primer an advertisement. Would that be possible for a charity? How does this involve government and politics? Does this organization aim to service the common good, the goal of a charitable nonprofit? It could be argued that the Southern Poverty Law Center has become a political asset with an agenda, with an influx of monetary gluttony that levels the standard it was built upon, and is threatening to what some consider the exceptional value of the American foundation.

     To examine the assertion of monetary interest versus social justice and obligation, I submit relevant data: the total 2023 revenues of the professional football, baseball, and basketball halls of fame together were 35% of those of the SPLC. The famous Field Museum in Chicago, welcoming over 11,000,000 visitors that same year had less than 2/3 the SPLCs revenue. For context, this posits the SPLC at a vaster wealth than many colleges and universities, including within Alabama, their locale. Samford University, the states largest private school and Tuskegee, ranging in assets of $547 - 550 million were belittled. Their revenue in August of this year from a ProPublica search placed the nonprofit at #17 in most recent available annual revenue behind ten hospitals/health care providers, two private universities, two housing providers, one private foundation, and the SEC collegiate athletic conference. Their total 2024 revenues were $129 million, down from a record-breaking haul of $169.8 million the previous year. For perspective, the combined 2023 revenue of Alabama's eight regional food banks associated with Feeding America and servicing the whole state was $183 million. In 2023, the SPLC brought in almost $48 million more than the United Way of Central Alabama. Their website contains a consistent and current appeal for fundraising, urging donations ranging from $15 to $250 with an All-Hands-On-Deck scenario. (Stilson, 2025) With this much in their coffers, does the SPLC produce results for the donating public?

     Certainly they have. Established in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joe Levin, a pair of entrepreneurs turned civil-rights lawyers, they successfully argued cases like segregation of the YMCA (Smith vs. YMCA, 1969), the state police (Paradise vs. Allen, 1972), unfairly drawn school districts (Nixon vs. Brewer, 1972), as well as the practice of eugenics (Relf vs. Weinberger, 1973). Through the years the SPLC has become a civil-rights juggernaut, best known for identifying and classifying hate groups, as well as providing the serviceable definition of a hate group, being "having beliefs that or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics" (Unknown, 2025). They have established the accepted hallmark for legal judgement of this criteria.

     The Matthew Shepard Foundation primarily focuses on conscience-raising about anti-gay issues. CEO Judy Shepard, the deceased party's mother, fetches $5-10,000 per speaking engagement predicated on a situation she insists is the result of visceral homophobia despite excessive evidence to the contrary. Mrs. Shepard also enjoys her status as a celebrated figure in the gay community.

     In 1997 my cousin, then-17 year old Kevin Jacobs was involved in a marijuana deal with three of his White peers in Paducah, Kentucky when the trio went to an out of the way spot to do their business. What transpired was an execution-style assault, with the boy left for dead in his vehicle. He would be found clinging pitifully to life, dying in the hospital with his mother and close family emotionally firebombed. The impetus for this horrible act was not weed; this is no cautionary tale about "gateway drugs". The incivility was due to his shoes, jacket, and status. The person who set this up, the brother of the convicted, and according to some in the inmate community actual gunman, was a close associate. He hated my cousin for being White (despite his sameness) and middle-class. Enough to set him up to die miserably, watch excitedly, steal the clothes off his dying form, or maybe do the dirty work himself. This would never qualify as a federal hate crime, but was as demographically targeted as any tried under that banner.

     Another serious issue with hate crimes legislation is that it increases desirability to become the object of protection. I have observed this phenomenon in the microcosm of society provided by Northpoint Training Center where I stand incarcerated. Federal hate crime charges can be leveled at any inmate assaulting the person of another detainee identifying as Transgender. This protection has caused an uptick in sex criminals well after their arrival changing their designation to such, malingering sexual dysphoria to dodge "jailhouse justice", retribution for cases like child molestation, rape, and underage pornography, or yard offenses like informing on fellow inmates.

     This tactic is not unique to the imprisoned community by a long-shot. In his book Hate Crime Hoax, Wilfred Reilly, a Political Science professor at Historically Black Kentucky State University, points out in laborious detail the severe epidemic of reported hate crimes of every persuasion and ideology where the perpetrator is discovered to be the reporting victim. Worse is the ofttimes unapologetic nature of these individuals when they are caught. Rather than repentance, they tend to offer lectures as if they performed these misdeeds to offer society a lesson. We have seen this on the national level with actor Jussie Smollett, staging a MAGA-induced, poorly executed self-attack whereby assistance from Don Lemon and Michelle Obama's personal assistant almost got the now-estranged performer excised from justice, but the Illinois Bar Association had other thoughts (Ramaswarmy, 2020). Bubba Wallace laid claims to a noose in his NASCAR garage, and after an investigation showed the rope-pull was there months before his arrival in the space he doubled-down and gained millions with hate victim faux status landing him a Netflix contract.

     Victimization is so voguish we have to question the notion of marginalization. Consider Rachel Dolezal, who rode civil-rights advocacy to the presidents seat of the Spokane, WA NAACP chapter, became an instructor in Africana studies at Eastern Washington University, education director at the Human Rights Education Institute, and was appointed to a police advisory commission. Reporting numerous hate crimes to the local authorities, none panned out. Unbelievably, Rachel's parents wound up coming forward, outing their child as WHITE. She acknowledged her Caucasian ancestry yet still identified as Black, then penned a memoir in 2017. This enticement for the "privilege" of victimization is not exclusive to those left of the Establishment. Both Reilly and Vivek Ramaswamy in his narrative on this condition Nation Of Victims draw ire on conservatives and Republicans for similar fakery and complaints of victimization rather than problem-solving.

     The last quandary concerning management of hate crimes intelligence is religion and the freedom of it's practice, a guarantee of our First Amendment. Where do we establish the boundary between doctrine and xenophobia, and who makes this distinction - a self-appointed cabal of attorneys?

     At one time, slavery was condoned by the populace due to the Book of Genesis relating the situation of Noahs grandson Canaan, whose father was Ham who offended God by gossiping with his brothers regarding their father's naked drunkenness. Punishment was rendered via a generational curse that turned Canaan's skin black with the directive to be "the servant of servants", along with any and all descendants. The welcoming of slaves into the Church proper led to the American Methodist Episcopal interpretation which views Jesus as the liberator of the enslaved, and for the visible spectrum of Christianity, it is not synonymous with a modern push to undo the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the Holy Bible, Quaran, and practitioners of Rastafarianism, Odinism, and the Hindi among others view homosexuality as sacrilege.

     Does preaching from their religious materials, as our Constitution protects, constitute hate speech? According to the Southern Poverty Law Center it does, in many cases. Removing the notion of the group as strictly left-leaning, they have designated Nation Of Islam a hate group. Several conservative Christian groups have fallen onto their contested hate map, including the Family Research Council, a public advisory organization focused on antiabortion and anti-gay policy. Staff member Jessica Prol Smith recollected in 2019 almost being brutally murdered due to SPLCs qualitatively irresponsible designation (Prol, 2019). Would her early extinction have been a hate crime? According to her loved ones, undoubtedly. Smith comments that SPLC "...used its 'hate group' list to promote the fiction that violent neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable."

     One of the SPLCs most ardent nemeses is a congregation of fundamentalist Christians from Topeka, Kansas, Westboro Baptist Church. Known worldwide for provocative signage: "God Hates Fags", "Thank God For Dead Soldiers", "Christians Caused Fag Marriage" and Semper-Fi Fags", carried within a court-ordered 1000 feet of the funerals of soldiers, rock concerts, baby christenings, and any event they feel can draw attention to their message, WBC was the subject of a British-made documentary "Americas Most Hated Family" (the clan in question being the Phelps - deceased patriarch and church founder Reverend Fred, his offspring, and their descendants). Equally, the left and right have no home nor love lost for this sect. The SPLC has mounted an effort for some time now to halt the behaviors of Westboro, if not shut down the church (Unknown, 2025).

     Again, a healthy majority of citizens would never miss this group of worshipers, especially other Baptists who generally bristle at their mention. WBC enjoys this pariah status, as hard-line Christianity from strict interpretation involves being "hated in all nations". All of their abrasive signs come from biblical passages, and sometimes include the reference. The only inciting piece is "Death Penalty 4 Fags", which refers to the Old Testament decree from Yahweh that homosexuals be stoned to death. It could be argued this could lead to the lesser-minded to enact vengeance, but I have yet to hear of an assault linked to WBC, unlike SPLC.

     Regardless, the issue at hand is that Westboro Baptist Church is America's stronghold for freedom, and this is coming from a self-professed gay prison inmate. If they are ever shut down for the works they do, we are doomed. They stand as the shining example before the world that America is the Great Experiment, and not a fascist state. It is because of people like the Phelps family, indirectly, that our borders are overrun. I mentioned earlier my time in the Netherlands, I will go on record as the mecca for tolerance on this Earth. When I asked numerous folks that included a musician and an artist, both more free-spirited than anyone you will encounter in coastal USA, they both, if able to choose, would head to the US to live over Amsterdam. Each gave the reason resoundingly being for the freedoms. Stripping WBC would volley back to those who dealt it, I guarantee it.

     We see unfolding the cases against Leticia James and James Comey, who exhaustively spent time and money that was arguably not theirs to waste trying to upend their political foe. Now that individual is again Commander-and-Chief, and these politicians are facing trials of their own seemingly resultant of his ire. The Patriot Act, allowing surveillance of private citizens for reasons of domestic security, was forged by George W. Bush in the wake of 911 to the outcry of liberals but was feared by its supporters during both the Obama and Biden Administrations. Any door opened that impedes one individual affects us all and invariably whomever least expects it will get shoved through it.

     Litigation of hate crimes is not to be confused with doing the same for civil rights. This science should not be put in the hands of groups of people calling themselves a charity. They will always need a reason to exist, lest job, finance, and status deficit should occur. Aside from the group in question, consider the Human Rights Campaign, whose reason to be was the claim to never stop until same-sex marriage happens. In 2015, the Supreme Court handed them their reason for living. What does a financial monolith do when their point is removed? Pivot.

     The cause of the moment, Transgender rights became the HRCs sole impetus. The problem is there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals. The Transgender population is a very small one compared to the community affected by gay marriage. The amount of focus the activist community worldwide lavished on all things Transgender dwarfed the Afrocentric experience per capita in terms of rigidity, intolerance, extreme response, and bizarre, outlandish disconnects from common sense. The most horrifying missteps being incorporating religion and children in a classroom environment, added to underage girls and sports, then BEER. The activist community literally found every way manageable to manufacture trans-hatred that did not exist prior from Independents and Moderates. Middle Americans who had no dog in the sexually dysphoric race now loathe the very word "Trans". Trump 2.0 has brought the potential cessation of the inmates who have had gender affirming care from previous decades before incarceration losing their needed hormones. The current President is not the problem, his party kin are responding to an infuriated base, thanks to gluttonous charities and activists attacking "hate".

     The most frequently murdered demographic in the country is the Transgender population. Every instance of violence I have seen against those friends I have had erupted from the men they aligned with and did not reveal their biological identity to. However, the stunted conversation present-day activism brings that community precludes the ability to potentially save lives. Again, this brand of civil rights is anything but helpful or beneficial to society.

     Kash Patel, responsible for national security, has ended the FBI's relationship with the SPLC for listing Turning Point as a Hate Group (Wendler, 2025). Founder Charlie Kirk could have been assassinated over the hate map. I saw only a small sample of Mr. Kirk's offerings and style and I am horrified at the entire affair, as I saw nothing from the young man that warranted anything resembling that reaction. A disconnect in Critical Thinking is the belief that disapproval and hatred are synonyms. The response of so many was vitriol, even conservative media while mourning him used epithets against his opponents, a maneuver I cannot imagine the figure they claimed to be eulogizing supporting, and seemed to get a ghoulish fervor milking the tragedy. MSNBC fired someone for accusing the deceased of hate speech, exhibiting good decorum, yet wasn't applauded across the ideological aisle even as the discussion for "turning down the temperature" echoed the thoroughfares. Kirk's attacker unmistakably perpetrated a hate crime. Where I live I know more than I care to about both parts of that term.

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Works Cited

Kurtz, Glen Senior Contributing Author, American Government 3e, Page 147

 

Stilson, Robert "The SPLC is Biased and Extraordinarily Wealthy", The Hill website September 2025

 

Unknown Contributor Encyclopedia of Alabama, "Southern Poverty Law Center", 2025

 

Reilly, Wilfred Hate Crime Hoax, Regnery Publishing 2019

 

Ramaswarmy, Vivek Nation of Victims, Hachette 2022, Page 30

 

Prol, Jessica "The Southern Poverty Law Center is a Hate-Based Scam That Nearly Caused Me To Be Murdered", USA Today, Aug 2019

 

Unknown Contributor "Westboro Baptist Church", Southern Poverty Law Center website 2025

 

Wendler, Jacob "FBI Cuts Ties With Southern Poverty Law Center After MAGA Push", Politico Oct 2025